Name: This Illegal Psychedelic Is Hailed as a ‘Revolutionary Breakthrough’
Uploaded: 2025-06-19T04:01:00Z
Duration: 8 min 20 s
Description: As opioid addiction continues to devastate communities, a growing number of people are turning to ibogaine—an obscure and controversial psychedelic. WSJ visits a clinic in Mexico to follow one patient's journey through this intense and unorthodox treatment.

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As opioid addiction continues to devastate communities, a growing number of people are turning to ibogaine—an obscure and controversial psychedelic. WSJ visits a clinic in Mexico to follow one patient's journey through this intense and unorthodox treatment. Photo: Alexander Hotz

https://m.wsj.net/video/20250618/19ad97aa-6c78-4a7f-981b-f7c238229e26/1/hls/manifest-hd-wifi.m3u8

As opioid addiction continues to devastate communities, a growing number of people are turning to ibogaine—an obscure and controversial psychedelic. WSJ visits a clinic in Mexico to follow one patient's journey through this intense and unorthodox treatment.

This Illegal Psychedelic Is Hailed as a ‘Revolutionary Breakthrough’

Speaker: For decades, the opioid crisis has defied standard treatments, but deep in the shadows of modern medicine lies a radical but effective alternative. Ibogaine is a powerful psychedelic, often described as miraculous by those who've tried it because of its remarkable ability to erase years of addiction and the agony of withdrawal in just one harrowing session.

It is a revolutionary breakthrough.

The success rate is staggering.

Speaker: But ibogaine remains illegal in the US in part because it can be deadly. Despite the risks, thousands of desperate Americans addicted to opioids are crossing borders to find hope in the treatment.

I'm going to die a slow, miserable death from doing drugs anyways. So I would rather, whether it's a short or long life, live it not on drugs anymore.

Speaker: Ibogaine is a naturally occurring psychoactive compound extracted from the root bark of a shrub Tabernanthe iboga. For centuries, it's been used in ceremonies in West Africa by followers of the Bwiti spiritual practice. Ibogaine's potential to treat opioid addiction was discovered by accident in 1962 when 19-year-old Howard Lotsof, who was addicted to heroin, took the drug and found that it stopped both his cravings and withdrawals. Word spread. Today, ibogaine is offered at a small but growing number of clinics around the world. Because ibogaine treatment exists largely outside mainstream medicine, the medical subcultures surrounding it has been described as a vast, uncontrolled experiment. In the US, ibogaine is classified as a schedule I narcotic alongside heroin with no accepted medical use. But in countries like Mexico and Brazil, clinics operate legally under varying regulations. One of the most prominent clinics, Ambio Life Sciences, is located in Tijuana, Mexico.

When people call, and they are really at their wits end, ibogaine is generally the final option for a lot of people.

So you're doing treatment, what, tomorrow?

From the sounds of it, yeah.

Speaker: Ambio offers medically supervised ibogaine treatments tailored to each patient. One of those patients is Kyle Ditommaso, a 35-year-old mechanic from California who's battled opioid addiction for two decades.

I'm assuming I can't remember much about my childhood because I've done drugs since I was 15 years old.

Speaker: After high school, Kyle joined the Marines in hopes of turning his life around. But once he returned, he started using again and more heavily. After multiple stints in rehab, Kyle decided to try ibogaine after hearing about its effects on a podcast.

Ibogaine represents something different. I'm not saying that ibogaine is going to cure me of my drug addiction, but it might give me a new chance to not do drugs again.

Speaker: Before the ibogaine begins to work, Ambio's medical practitioners and staff held a short ceremony to honor the Bwiti tradition.

Speaker: We really don't know how your future will be, but I'm pretty sure after this medicine, we're gonna have a bunch of tools to take care our life in a better way.

Speaker: During the treatment, Kyle was connected to a heart monitor and constantly watched by Ambio's medical staff. He spent the next 10 hours lying on a mattress. But ibogaine began treatment isn't easy. Patients often face hours of intense, sometimes traumatic visions while lying semi paralyzed. Many vomit multiple times during the 10 to 12 hour trip.

So it's almost like a lucid dream type state for some people, you might see visions that make sense, visions that are meaningful, visions that help recontextualize past traumatic events. Sometimes the visions are just sheer chaos.

Speaker: Opioid addiction is notoriously difficult to overcome.

There is something really fundamental about opioid dependence. It's the mother of all addiction.

Speaker: Dr. Kenneth Alper has been studying ibogaine for decades.

Opiates bind to and activate something called the opioid receptor and the opioid receptor adapts to this by becoming less sensitive. This is pharmacological tolerance, which means that larger and larger doses are needed to achieve the same effect, and the development of tolerance also becomes the development of dependence.

Speaker: When someone is physically dependent on opiates and they stop using them abruptly, they go into withdrawal.

And the symptoms of withdrawal are quite dramatic. Nausea, anxiety, sweating, sleeplessness, muscle pains, it's a really grueling ordeal that they go through.

Today, the standard treatment for opioid addiction in the US is opioid replacement therapy, which involves swapping an illegal opioid like heroin for an opioid medication that reduces withdrawal symptoms and cravings without producing the same high. But many people with opioid addiction like Kyle, find them mediocre at best.

They decrease joy more than anything. You're super flat, you don't experience emotion still.

Speaker: Studies show that while current treatments for opioid addiction are effective in reducing harm, they are not very effective at getting off opioids. Still, there is no question that medications like buprenorphine and methadone remain the best legal treatment option for opioid addiction in the US.

Conventional treatment has saved a lot of lives. It is certainly more effective than no treatment.

Speaker: There has never been a formal clinical trial with ibogaine in the US. The evidence we do have of ibogaine's efficacy comes from small observational studies. A 2017 study found that 30% of participants reported never using opioids again following ibogaine treatment. Another study reported 75% of patients stayed opioid free for a year after treatment, but it would be misleading to think of ibogaine as a cure for opioid addiction.

Ibogaine is not a magic bullet. What it is is it's a powerful negative pattern interrupter. So powerful, it can take somebody off of heroin virtually overnight.

Speaker: Scientists still don't understand exactly how ibogaine works.

Basically, ibogaine is a new paradigm. Pharmacologically, I think it's one of the most interesting pharmacological paradigms of, you know, our generation.

But Ibogaine isn't without risk, especially without proper screening and medical supervision.

The biggest risk of ibogaine use is death. Ibogaine does have a cardiotoxicity issue. This is not something that you do recreationally.

Speaker: for Kyle, the risks were worth it. I've tried everything else. One way or another, I go back.

Texas can choose to help end addiction.

Speaker: A movement is also underway to make ibogaine a legal treatment option in the US.

Ibogaine has significant therapeutic value.

Bryan Hubbard led the initiative which successfully lobbied Texas to fund clinical research into ibogaine.

You have to create an incentive through governmental expenditure to foster the development of the therapeutic.

Speaker: The Texas initiative will allocate millions in state funds to establish a public-private research partnership for the first ever ibogaine clinical trials in the US.

Texas is now leading the way in the United States for the evaluation of ibogaine.

Speaker: Today, ibogaine treatment remains out of reach for most Americans addicted to opioids. Prices for treatment range widely depending on the provider, but typically they run from about $5,000 on the low end to about $15,000. The Wall Street Journal last spoke with Kyle about a month after his ibogaine treatment.

It was definitely worth it because even though it has sucked, it was way, way easier than any other route.

Speaker: Kyle said his cravings disappeared immediately, but some withdrawals did linger weeks after his treatment.

It's not something you can just like go and do when you're gonna be fixed. It doesn't work that way. Like you have to be ready to stop doing drugs for it to work. And you know, that's where I was at.

For people who battle addiction like Kyle, and for a country desperate for solutions, ibogaine may not offer a miracle, but a fighting chance.

Alright, so today is June 7th. I'm along the coast right now on a hike. Tomorrow will be eight weeks since doing ibogaine. Just the urge to do drugs all the time is gone.

This Illegal Psychedelic Is Hailed as a ‘Revolutionary Breakthrough’

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